Ed Farmer inquest: Student died from ‘toxic effects’ of alcohol

Image copyrightFamily photoImage caption Ed Farmer was found unresponsive and taken to hospital, but died

A university student died from the “toxic effects” of drinking excessive alcohol on an “initiation-style” bar crawl, a coroner has ruled.

Newcastle University’s Ed Farmer died in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest in December 2016.

The 20-year-old, from Leicester, had been on a night out organised by members of the Agricultural Society.

Mr Farmer’s family criticised the university over its stance towards initiation events.

Coroner Karen Dilks said there had been a lack of awareness of the “inherent risks” of binge drinking and Mr Farmer had died as a “direct effect” of consuming so much alcohol in a short period of time.

She said first-year students should be formally trained about the potentially fatal risks of alcohol.

Underwhelmed and frustrated

Speaking outside court, Mr Farmer’s father Jeremy said the inquest had been a “difficult and testing process”.

He said the family had been left “utterly underwhelmed and frustrated by the apparent inactivity of Newcastle University and its student union to get to the heart of the problem of student initiations”.

“Ed’s is not the first utterly needless and wasteful death to come about through this potentially fatal practice,” he said.

He added they had made the “most difficult decision” to agree to the release of CCTV footage showing Mr Farmer on the ground at a Metro station.

“We have made this decision trusting that these images can be used to bring home to students and universities the real dangers associated with the practice of initiations,” he said.

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Media captionEd Farmer’s father said his family had made the “difficult decision” to release this CCTV footage.

At one bar, the group had ordered about 100 triple vodkas and Mr Farmer was later carried to a student house, the inquest at Newcastle Civic Centre heard.